


Painkiller

by murderousfiligree



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Bondage, Dark, M/M, Masochism, Sadism, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:55:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderousfiligree/pseuds/murderousfiligree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zim finally captures Dib; his victim's death will be neither swift nor merciful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painkiller

 

 

  
_Tearing through my outsides reaching in. Don't be careful. Let's begin._  --The Queenstons, "Painkiller"

 

* * *

Dib was drowning.

Colors accosted his blurred and bleary vision; the sweet liquid that had sustained him was spiraling towards an unseen drain. The air seared his lungs, and he was drowning in it—he coughed violently and tried to stand. He was weak as a newborn kitten. 

The air burned. The light burned. His skin was clammy and white, veins bright blue rivers slicing through a snowy field. He pressed his face against an unseen barrier and found the will to raise his eyes; a blur of green loomed over him, radiating menace from its side of the glass.

 _Where am I?_   he thought, and the question had truly just occurred to him. He made considerable effort to voice it, but fell victim to another vigorous fit of coughing.  

“Dib-worm,” the blur said. “How nice of you to join me.”

The voice was achingly familiar, but Dib could not place it. The room was still spinning, and he could barely see— _glasses, I need my glasses_ , he realized, and looked drunkenly around the distorted room.

“Filthy, pitiful,  _hyu_ man.” 

Dib looked back towards the blur—he could make out eyes now, red as death, narrow as a snake’s. “Where?” he managed to choke, struggling towards the figure.

“Where do you think, Dib-stink? I found you lurking around here with that picture-device of yours. Did you really think you could outsmart the almighty  _Zim_?”

It took a few seconds for the words to sink in—icy fear gripped his body, sapping what little strength he had been able to muster. “Please,” he whispered, his voice stumbling into a cough. The coppery taste of blood welled in his throat, and crimson spattered against the glass. “Let me…go...”

The glass barrier vanished in front of him, and he collapsed onto the floor with all the grace of a drunken foal.  

“Go,” Zim encouraged. A wicked smile attached itself to his tone.

Dib struggled against the icy floor, his body unfolding and folding again in the fashion of an inchworm. He clawed at the tiles like an animal, nails cracking, bruises blossoming, for the ground was truly hard and cold as ice—and the cold sank its teeth in his naked body with the mechanical ruthlessness of a bear trap.  

A hearty laugh pierced the silence, and Zim started towards his broken enemy. “I win, Dib!” He placed a foot firmly on Dib’s head. “ _I win._ ” He leaned down, voice rasping hot against his ear: “ _Say it._ Beg for your life, you revolting  _worm._ ”

“You win,” he cried, the sound barely escaping his cracked and bloodied lips. “You win, Zim. Don’t kill me.  _Please_ don’t—” Zim buried the heel of his shoe in Dib’s temple. “—kill me!”

“You don’t  _deserve_  to live, earth-monkey.”

“It hurts,” Dib gasped. “Please…everything hurts. Let me go, Zim.  _Let me go!”_  His scream broke halfway and crumpled into a whisper. Zim grabbed his face, grinning wolfishly. “No,” he said.

Dib fell into darkness.   

* * *

            He woke with limbs bound to a metal table, shivering under florescent white lights. His mouth tasted like blood and vomit and his eyes had crusted over in his sleep; his body still ached, and he was still stark naked.

For the first time in his life, Dib was genuinely terrified.   

            “ _Finally,_ ” Zim screeched. “The earth-monkey is awake. It’s not nice to fall asleep when someone’s talking to you,  _Dib_.”

            Dib swallowed hard, staring helplessly at the ceiling.

            “You ignore  _Zim_?” Zim retrieved a sharp-looking object from the side table. Dib’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates as he strained against his fetters. Zim watched with barely-concealed glee.

            “Don’t worry, Dib-worm. I’m not going to kill you…not yet, anyways. I’ve yet to diagram the functions of your  _filthy,_   _revolting_  body for the Tallest. It’s in my best interests that you’re alive.” His crimson eyes flashed wickedly. “But not unharmed.”

            He ran the blade along the side of Dib’s calf, just enough to draw blood—Dib's breath rose to a manic pace and his heart raced alongside. “Zim…please don’t…I’ll do anything, I—I’ll stop hunting you. Yeah, I’ll—Ow, fuck!” He released another continuous stream of swears, tears burning in his eyes. “Please, Zim,” he whispered. “I just want to go home.”

             “You should have thought about that before you broke into my house, you  _stupid,_  smelly…er…”

            “Human?” Dib suggested.  

            “Silence!” Zim barked, pressing the weapon to his neck. “You will not  _speak_  unless _spoken to_ , Dib-thing.”

            Dib nodded, wincing as the blade bit into his throat.

            “Now…. let’s see how your  _disgusting_ body functions.” Zim circled the table once. “I already know much about you earth-pigs, due to my superior observational abilities. However… _that_ ,” he pointed to the excrescence between Dib’s legs, “is unfamiliar. What is its purpose?”

            Dib blushed brilliant red, and was suddenly struck by the hilarity of his situation. Here he was, about to be dismembered by a malicious alien creature, about to die a violent death at nineteen—and he was being questioned about his goddamned penis. He began to laugh—at first quietly, then in gasping hysterics.

            “ _Answer me!_ ” Zim roared, digging his claws into the flesh of Dib’s shoulder. “What is  _funny,_ Dib-stink?”

            “It’s just…how we reproduce. Make babies. I mean, fuck, you've been here almost a decade…you really are unobservant, Zim. You’ll never take over this damned planet. It’s too stupid to save itself without me, but you’re too stupid to destroy it anyways. You don’t know what a goddamned penis is. Fuck.”

            Zim glowered at him. “I told you not to speak unless spoken to,” he hissed, running the blade across Dib’s chest. The laughter vanished from his eyes—Dib watched the blood beading on surface of his skin, mixing with cold sweat. The cut was not deep. It was a warning.

            “Actually,” Zim continued, “don’t talk at all. I can _easily_  figure out your weaknesses with my superior Irken intellect. I’ll just have to use a more…direct approach.” He promptly shoved his hand down Dib’s throat.

            Dib gagged, struggling, eyes bugging out of his head. Zim jerked back his hand as Dib vomited what was of his breakfast; the Irken seemed thoroughly disgusted. He peeled off his glove and fumbled for another one. “Filthy earth-pig, spilling your half-digested earth-goo on my table…”

            Dib groaned, closing his eyes tightly.

            Next, Zim prodded and poked him with a wide assortment of needles—Dib fixed his jaw, determined not to cry out, as much as the Irken would have liked him to. Zim avoided his mouth after the initial puking incident, which was a blessing and a curse—the alien seemed to be enjoying himself elsewhere, and when he gave a swift stab at his crotch with a particularly large needle, Dib screamed like a ten-year-old girl.

            “What’s the matter,  _Dib_?” Zim wrapped a gloved hand around a rather intimate part of his anatomy, and the blush reclaimed Dib’s face with a rigorous vengeance.

             Zim met his gaze, eyes cold and calculating. Dib closed his eyes, and swore mentally—blood was rushing to the afflicted area, and he prayed that for some unfathomable reason Zim would not notice.

            “Its…shape is changing,” Zim noted, his tone a blend of curiosity and revulsion.

            Dib was suddenly thankful he wasn’t expected to explain why.

            “Interesting. Yes…I suppose that makes sense. You earth-monkeys breed like your filthy rodents...” Zim began stroking the organ absently, which made Dib’s little problem significantly worse. His breath was now ragged, his heart still hammering fast—now for a completely different reason. He fought the urge to laugh again; it was really the most ridiculous way to die.

            “…But I do not understand how, exactly,” Zim mused, climbing onto the table, knife in one hand, Dib’s manhood in the other. “Dib-stink. Open your eyes.”

            Dib obeyed, and had to swallow a moan—the sight of the alien, poised and ready to kill, unintentionally giving him a handjob was unexplainably and bizarrely arousing.

            “Don’t stop,” he rasped.

            Zim dug the knife into his upper thigh, deeply this time—Dib screamed and tossed his head back—the Irken’s hand was wrapped solidly around his dick, and the pain and pleasure collided in his mind with explosive ecstasy.  Warmth pooled in his gut as blood seeped from his leg—Zim watched carefully, nonplussed. “Interesting…”

            “Don’t stop,” he said again, and Zim buried the blade in his other thigh, still stroking roughly, jerking, clawing— _Yes._

            His limbs strained against the metal clasps, hips bucking, his body’s zenith in the hands of his torturer. He forgot that he was going to die. He forgot Zim was his enemy—he lost himself entire, to sensation, to pain, to elation. All the while the Irken watched, fascinated, mumbling to himself.

            Orgasm beset him with violent tremors; his muscles tightened around the knife, and the Irken’s hand followed suit—agonizing ecstasies spread from his groin up through his spine—he cried out, and Zim swore profusely at the outcome.

            “ _Disgusting_!” he squawked, and scurried off to the adjacent room.  

            Dib closed his eyes.

* * *

            He was home, and his room was spinning, violently spinning—he was sick, that was all, sick, it had all been a nightmare, a horrible nightmare—phantasmagoric shadows detaching from the walls, clawing at him—his sister’s voice, a quiet mumbling in the background—his father’s disappointed glare. Zim. Yes, it had all been a nightmare, and he rose unsteadily to his feet with this belief clutched to his heart.

            Zim was there. God, he was still there. Naked, all pale green skin and sharp angles and sharp eyes—raping him, and everyone was watching, everyone was watching—laughing, they were laughing at him,  _fucking Christ._

            He was suddenly thirsty, unbearably parched, hungry, and nauseated; Zim’s simpering face was replaced with a shining bright light. He felt a hand moving, ripping inside of him.

            Dib screamed. 

* * *

            The room was dark. His skin was affixed to the table with dried blood and semen. He couldn’t see anything—the lights had been shut off or he was thoroughly blinded.

            Zim was gone.                                            

            He was awfully, dreadfully alone.   

* * *

 

            Dib awoke and Zim was there—watching him, eyes narrowed, segmented tongue racing across his teeth; he resembled a snake, withdrawn to prepare for its final strike. “You have reached the end of your usefulness,” he announced. “No one will know what has taken place here. You are going to die, Dib-worm.”  

Zim stepped out from the shadows, illuminating his starkly unclothed body. He was lithe, composed of jagged, jutting bones and sallow skin, genitalia apparently absent, antennae poised with tentative grace. “I am going to kill you,” he said. 

            Dib smiled. “I’ve been waiting a long time to hear you say that.”

           

            Inhuman fingers carved patterns in his waiting skin. Zim was atop him, ravaging him, a knife dragging slowly through his gut, a hand elbow-deep in his rectum, searching, clawing,  _ripping, tearing—_

            Dib screamed in agony, in ecstasy; Zim caressed his entrails, goading unfathomable bliss—slicing the skin from his bones, drowning him in exsanguinating misery. The air stung and his body was slickened with blood; the edges of his vision were blurred, his hips bucking purely in reflex.

            Zim’s hand was now deep inside him, searching, ripping through the surface, joining the knife in the defacement of his skin. Zim slipped his other hand beneath his ribs, clutching the human’s beating heart, pulling it from his chest with a sickening  _crack._

            Dib’s final breath escaped on a scream. 

* * *

               Zim sat alone, elbow-deep in the blood and bodily fluids of his conquered enemy. His breath was ragged, hands tightly clutching the heart that had long stopped beating; he observed the gaping jaw and filthy black hair, the only recognizable part of the mutilated cadaver.

              He rose to his feet, naked and cold, skin stained and dripping crimson. “I win, Dib-worm.” He reached shakily for the light.

              Darkness swallowed the room, and Zim’s rasping mantra echoed in the blackness:

              “I win.”

**Author's Note:**

> Jeez, my sixteen-year-old self was really fond of semicolons. I went through and made some minor edits to this story, and also upped Dib's age to nineteen since I just felt weird looking back on this fic as an adult. Hope y'all enjoyed!


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